John Wyver writes: Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin was born 136 years ago today. To mark his 50th birthday on Sunday 16 April 1939, when Charlie was working on the script for The Great Dictator (1940), Alexandra Palace screened an afternoon programme of extracts from his early comedies. Largely because of the industry refusing to license any extracts to the new medium, this was the only substantial recognition of cinema history by the pre-war television service.
Selecting from the archive of the British Film Institute, which had been founded earlier in the decade, the Institute’s technical director H.D. Waley chose scenes from the Keystone comedy Tillie’s Punctured Romance (1914), and three Essanay films, all made in 1915, The Tramp (above), The Bank and The Champion. Miss May Langston, who had been playing for the movies since 1905, provided piano improvisations and, pleasingly, the prints were shown at the correct speed of 16 frames per second.
Here’s the feature-length Tillie’s Punctured Romance in all its comic glory:
John Wyver writes: Lest these posts give the impression that pre-war television from Alexandra Palace was all classical ballet and mimed Wagner, the evening of Saturday 15 April 1939 was one of seven occasions when the studio hosted Indian magician Kuda Bux, otherwise known as ‘the man with the X-ray eyes’. Just as it does today, television loved a soupçon of sensationalism.
Over the course of eight decades, Kuda Bux, a self-styled “Hindu mystic,” was a point of intersection for vaudeville, Roald Dahl, spiritualism, paranormal research, precursors to reality TV, the allure of the East, bad PR, brilliant PR, radio programs that needed a time delay, and yogic concentration.
John Wyver writes: At one minute past 3pm on the afternoon of Thursday 14 April 1938, Alexandra Palace switched over to a feed from a studio built inside the Ideal Home Exhibition. In a first 10-minute visit to Olympia, Jasmine Bligh interviewed actor and singer Yvonne Arnaud, the close harmony group trio The Cavendish Three perfomed ‘I double dare you’ at the piano, and accompanied by Kay Cavendish, Gracie Fields sang ‘Sally’ and ‘Little Old Lady’ (above).
Later that afternoon, as well as that evening Picture Page visited the BBC’s outside broadcast set-up at the show, and broadcasts from Olympia dotted the schedules on Saturday (but since it was the Easter weekend, not Good Friday or Easter Sunday), and then from Monday to Thursday the following week.
At a time when viewers were still far more likely to encounter television in an exhibition, viewing room or bar rather than in a home (there were perhaps 5,000 families with sets across London), the BBC committed significant resources to these broadcasts aligning the medium with domestic modernity.
Back from holiday; normal service resumes with OTD post no 123…
John Wyver writes: On the afternoon of Tuesday 13 April 1937, and then again that evening, a second series of producer Mary Adams’ series The World of Women opened with a 17-minute illustrated talk by sculptor Dora Clarke (above). The artist presented a number of her artworks in wood, bronze and ‘bronzed plaster’, and apparently demonstrated her method ‘on a half finished pig in wood’.
We have already met the artist as the presenter of Making a Poster in February 1938, and she made a number of other appearances on pre-war television. In July 1937 she demonstrated plaster casting in July 1937 (which is the likely occasion of the header image) and then illustrated the process of Making a Life Mask in November that year. She reprised the latter presentation in February 1939, and five months later, in July, she displayed hand block printing on textiles.
John Wyver writes: another of my favourite OTDs from the 122 contributed to date, posted again during this week when I am on holiday.
Characterised by The Times as ‘an animated scene’, the interior of the Marble Arch Pavilion cinema was packed on the evening of 23 February 1939 with ‘an audience of men and women who were evidently boxing enthusiasts.’
Every seat was taken and some 70 others were standing against the walls, and there were excited cries of ‘Go it Eric’ and waves of applause. The occasion was the large-screen showing of the fight between Eric Boon and Arthur Danahar (above), an event of singular significance in the history of pre-war television.
John Wyver writes: As I am holiday this week I am posting again a number of my favourite OTDs to date.
The whole of the afternoon schedule on Monday 24 January 1938 was occupied by a presentation of act 2 of Richard Wagner’s music drama Tristan and Isolde. In the evening this was played again, in perhaps the most uncompromising cultural transmission of the pre-war period. Inevitably, the producer responsible was the innovative and uncompromising modernist Dallas Bower. The reaction was, well, mixed.
John Wyver writes: As I am on holiday this week I am taking the chance to post again a number of my favourite OTDs from the 122 published to date…
The evening of Thursday 9 February 1939 saw a 40-minute edition of Contrasts, which was a catch-all title for juxtapositions of variety artists from differing traditions. This was a particularly eclectic line-up featuring dancers from Java and Bali performing Japanese classical dance; singers Harry van Oss and Naya Grecia; Dutch-born writer and actor Selma van Diaz performing ‘The Lady’s Maid’ monologue-as-short-story by Katherine Mansfield; and dances by Pola Nirenska, a Polish Jewish refugee who had been a pupil of modernist dance pioneer Mary Wigman.
This modernist melange was assembled by the artist Pearl Binder, who was not only a co-founder in 1933 of the radical Artists International Association (currently the focus of a fascinating archive display at Tate Britain), but also an Alexandra Palace regular providing illustrations for television talks about fashion and other subjects.
John Wyver writes: As I am on holiday this week, I am presenting again some of my favourite OTD posts, exactly as they first appeared…
Today’s post is a melancholy little tale of a short, vibrant life in which early television played just a small part. The subject is dancer and acrobat Laurie Devine (above, right), who appeared performing ‘various dances’ on the late-night half-hour 30-line transmission from Studio BB at Broadcasting House on Wednesday 22 February 1933.
That Wednesday night was one of at least 40 documented appearances by Ms Devine on 30-line television, on occasions dancing with her brother Tom, and with a final bow on 4 September 1935. When she returned to work in her native Australia in August of the following year, she claimed ‘to have taken part in more television broadcasts than anyone else in the world’. Less than four months later, however, having had to withdraw from a hit revue in Sydney, she was dead from pneumonia.
John Wyver writes: I am on holiday in France this week, and so with 122 original OTD posts out in the world I thought I might highlight once again six of my favourite posts to date. This one is presented as it first appeared with the query and updates as they came along…
A mystery. Afternoon transmissions on Tuesday 19 January 1937 included the 8-minute unbilled drama The Underground Murder Mystery by J. Bissell Thomas. Produced by George More O’Ferrall, this would appear to be the first original script (that is, not adapted from a stage play) broadcast from Alexandra Palace, but – appropriately perhaps – it’s a mystery. No script seems to exist, and even the writer is fairly obscure. Can anyone help with any further information?
John Wyver writes: Just before 10pm on Wednesday 6 April 1938, a 10-minute broadcast from Alexandra Palace presented Surya Sena and Nelun Devi (above) performing Sinhalese folk songs. The transmission was organised by producer and musicologist Philip Bate, who we have met here before.
Surya Sena and his wife Nelun Devi were important pioneers in the revival of Sri Lankan folk music, and the programme is a further indication of how remarkably eclectic was the mix of musicians featured on early television.
(Before posting a little more about these two musicians, I should say I am holiday in France this week – which is why this post is a day late, and why for the rest of the week I am going to feature reprises of my six favourites from the 120 OTD posts to date.)
